the larger questions of our likings for the novel or the poem or the drama. A great part of the enjoyment that we find in our reading should come from our sense of the artistic excellence of the story or the poem or the essay, and we shall write with the most genuine pleasure when we are conscious of making a like appeal to the æsthetic sense in others. We shall not be able to do this, and we shall not know wherein we fail, until we have acquired a cultivated taste.

85. Style as Affected by Choice of Words. We may now properly turn to consideration of some writings of different sorts with a view to studying the authors' choice of words and of the different characteristics of style which have in part resulted from the choice in each case. A quality of first importance in all writing is clearness. We must make it our first care to be understood. Other qualities are important, but clearness is essential, and without it others cannot be effective. As one of the intellectual qualities of style, it is as necessary in a scientific treatise as in a literary essay, and is, therefore, not a distinct literary quality in itself, The other intellectual qualities of style, unity and coherence, are not directly affected by choice of words and so need not be considered here. On the other hand, the emotional qualities of style are in a measure dependent upon the character of the words employed. A composition which is to have literary character must have, in addition to unity and coherence and clearness, various emotional qualities of style which we may consider

under the general heads of force and elegance. If there does not appear in it some sort of mental energy which is in part communicated to the reader, and if there is not in it some appeal to the æsthetic sense, it is not literature. For this reason legal documents, strictly scientific treatises, books on mathematical subjects, and other writings of like sort, are not literature in the more exact sense. Under the general term force we may group such special forms of this quality as vehemence, passion, dignity and animation, and under elegance we may include propriety, harmony, beauty, and other qualities for which it would be difficult to find That we may come to a more definite understanding of what these qualities are, and of the way in which they are in part results of our choice of words, let us consider some writings in which they are present in greater or less degree. Taking into consideration the words printed in italics in each of the following selections from Burke and Macaulay, determine which author has chosen his words the better for the purpose of securing clearness, and state briefly why each word is or is not well chosen for that purpose.

exact terms.

But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not combined with other circumstances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of their commerce, indeed, has been trod some days ago, and with great ability, by a distinguished person, at your bar. This gentleman, after thirty-five years,

- it is so long since he first appeared at the same place to plead for the commerce of Great Britain has come again before you to plead the same cause, without any other effect of time than that to the fire of imagination and the extent of erudition, which even then marked him as one of the first literary characters of his age, he has added a consummate knowledge in the commercial interest of his country, formed by a long course of enlightened and discriminating experience.

EDMUND BURKE: Speech on Conciliation with America.

Hastings adThe culprit was

He had ruled made laws and

The sergeants made proclamation. vanced to the bar, and bent his knee. indeed not unworthy of that great presence. an extensive and a populous country, had treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive, but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, as legibly as under the picture in the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mens æqua in arduis; such was the aspect with which the great pro-consul presented himself to his judges,

T. B. MACAULAY: Warren Hastings.

Both Burke and Macaulay were orators. The former was in general unsuccessful in the effort to carry his hearers with him, while the latter was always heard with pleasure. Can you account for this in part from the character of these two selections?

86. Force as a Quality of Diction. The faults of diction which were considered in the beginning of this chapter - tautology, redundancy, circumlocution, and verbosity are faults of weakness, that is, they are faults that lessen the force the strength or energy, as it is variously called — of a composition. The discussion of these matters has made it clear that condensation when it is not carried so far as to lessen clearness contributes largely to force. Further, if we make a study of the work of an author whose style is remarkable for its force, we shall observe that this quality comes in part from the employment of words which have force in themselves. Words differ in degree of significance as well as in other ways, and a composition which is written in words that are largely unimportant will seem insignificant as a whole.

An examination of the selections from Irving and Kipling which follow may enable us to understand more clearly some of the elements that contribute to force in style. The lack of this quality in Irving is always noticeable, and to the nerveless character of his style it is in great measure due that, while he is studied in the schools because of his importance in our early literature, he is no longer read.

It is to be regretted that those early writers who treated of the discovery and settlement of America have not given us more particular and candid accounts of the remarkable characters that flourished in savage life. The scanty anecdotes which have reached us are full of peculiarity and interest; they furnish us with nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man is in a compara

ively primitive state, and what he owes to civilization. There is something of the charm of discovery in lighting upon these wild and unexplored tracts of human nature; in witnessing, as it were, the native growth cf moral sentiment; and perceiving those generous and romantic qualities which have been artificially cultivated by society, vegetating in spontaneous hardihood and rude magnifiWASHINGTON IRVING: The Sketch Book.

cence.

In this there are two things to be observed. In the first place, to the important words the voice gives little stress beyond that required by their meaning merely. Force is an emotional quality of style, as has been said, and Irving does not make choice of words such as call for emotional stress. And again, the words printed in italics are either lacking in intensity, as "regretted," or are too general and abstract, as "peculiarity" and "interest," to contribute to the force of the paragraph. The last defect is fundamental in Irving's writing as a whole. In this paragraph the tone is properly that of thoughtful consideration of the distinctive traits of the Indian, but the grounds for the regret expressed might well have been made more concretely and specifically definite and vivid. They would then have appealed to the reader with more directness and force.

Dick had instinctively sought running water for a comfort to his mood of mind. He was leaning over the embankment wall, watching the rush of the Thames through the arches of Westminster Bridge. He began by thinking of Torpenhow's advice, but, as of custom, lost himself in